Deathbed marriage invalid, daughters say in lawsuit

Thursday

BEATTYVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- It wasn't a long marriage between Denton Cooper and Izetta Johnson before death did them part.

Cooper and Johnson married just hours before the groom died on June 10 -- nuptials now being contested in court by Cooper's three daughters.

BEATTYVILLE, Ky. -- It wasn't a long marriage between Denton Cooper and Izetta Johnson before death did them part.

Cooper and Johnson married just hours before the groom died on June 10 -- nuptials now being contested in court by Cooper's three daughters.

The daughters, Crystal Mays, Shena Reece and Cassie Taulbee, all of Lee County, have gone to court seeking to have the marriage nullified.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that the petition to nullify the marriage calls it a "pretended ceremony" and "a mockery."

Charnel Burton of Booneville, the attorney for Izetta Johnson Cooper, did not immediately return a message from the Associated Press seeking comment today.

"My dad would have never done this," Reece said. "We didn't even know they were married until we went to the funeral home the next day," when Izetta Johnson Cooper mentioned it while arrangements were discussed.

The daughters filed the suit this month in Lee Circuit Court, saying their father was nearly dead at the time of the wedding and incapable of being married. The daughters say Cooper, 59, was dying of esophageal cancer and was under the influence of narcotics and other medications.

With those conditions, the daughters say, Cooper didn't have the capacity to consent or comprehend any marriage ceremony.

Cooper and Johnson, 52, had been married before, but were divorced about two decades ago. Cooper had been married three times before the deathbed marriage, Mays said. Johnson had been living with Cooper for perhaps a year and is living in his house today, Mays said.

"When he got cancer, she kinda floated back into his life," Mays said.

Johnson was appointed on July 14 to oversee the estate of Cooper, a laborer who drove a garbage truck for the city of Beattyville.

Among the assets listed in the court file were a 1998 Chevrolet truck, a 2003 truck, a house and land and other items valued at a total of $26,775.

Mays said contesting the marriage isn't about money or property because Cooper wasn't rich.

"He was just a Southern man who worked all his life. He was a very proud man, and that's what it's about," Mays said.

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